Awesome Friends, More weekend fun & "Greening" our home

Welcome back!

 It's been nice and hot here in Hawaii. We never use our air conditioner here in the house, so we get creative with ways to stay cool. Recently, I have just been carrying a fan with me everywhere I go! Tegan's favorite treat for a hot day is a nice big ice cube. We have such a high maintanence dog! Other than that, we have been spending our extra time planning out our trip back home to California next month. We haven't been home since our wedding, so it will be nice to catch up and spend some quality time with people. Speaking of people, have we mentioned that we have the most awesome friends in the world? Look what we got in the mail recently...

They are coasters from Peter and Gemma! They say "Hurst Brewing Co." and they have 4 different types of beer! I love them! Such a thoughtful gift and totally us. They also kinda match the bowls they gave us at our bridal shower. These are going to get plently of use.

We spent last afternoon at Tegan's favortie beach on Oahu. It's right by our house and because most "haoles" think it's sketchy, we usually have the whole place to ourselves which means we can just let Tegan frolic off-leash. How did we get so lucky to have a dog that absolutely loves the ocean? She understands waves and everything. :) Here's a pic of me and my baby girl from last night. This was about an hour before her big bath/brushing/butt hair trimming, haha.

We woke up this morning at about 5:30 AM to gear up for this hike that was right behind my house when I lived in Hawaii Kai. It's a good workout, and I have been telling Alex about this hike for years. It's called Koko Head Crater, and you hike up an abandoned tram line. It's practically straight up the whole way. The views from the top are amazing though. I am sitting here 7 hours later and my legs are still trembling!

We made it to the top! This picture is looking down into the crater that has a nice botanical garden inside.

Here is the view from the top of the tram line looking down.

We spent the rest of the morning at Waimanalo Bay Beach Park, which is an amazing beach that was recommended to me by my friend Raffy. It would be a great place to bring a BBQ and just relax all day. We then traveled up the coast a bit to He'eia Kea General Store. We have been trying to get there ever since my dad saw it on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was definitely worth the trip! Another great weekend here in Hawaii!

So I talked in an earlier post about working towards making our house and our lives more green. We are trying to do this a bit at a time. Here are a few things that we have done and we would love any recommendations. What do you guys do? Living in a rental home makes it a little difficult. Solar panels are a big deal out here because of all the sun, but unfortunatly we can't do that. Here is a list of the things that we have been doing:
1) Changed out all the lights in the house to CFLs. City Mill had an incredble sale this month: 12 bulbs for just over a buck.  We stocked up.
2) Started buying things in bulk and planning out our menus in order to save excess packaging.
3) Taking cold showers (we have it easy since it's so hot here anyways).
4) Not eating out/getting coffee out during the week
5) Doing a lot of upcycling to decorate our house. Have you guys seen this? Toilet Paper Art I don't have a picture of mine at the moment.
6) Stopped using paper towels. This was a hard one since I am kind of a clean freak!

Well, it's Sunday night and time to relax after a long day. Thanks for reading!

xoxox-D



Alex's B-day and Pupukea

Hey all!

We have had a busy couple of weeks. We have a lot of changes coming up at Aulani, so work has been pretty crazy. Here's the link if you wanna know what I am talking about. I guess change is just a part of life, especially when you are part of the opening team of a brand new resort. Even though we are sad to be losing Makai Preserve, we are excited about what the future has to offer. I don't know too much ye,t but I wanted to let you all know what's going on.

In other news, my wonderful husband turned 26 a couple weeks ago! Can you guess where he decided we should go? The zoo, of course! Are any of you really surprised? We are animal freaks, and somehow it took us a whole year to get around to going to the zoo. We actually decided to just buy a pass after seeing all the interesting animals they have there. However, my standards might be low since I am a little "land animal" deprived living here in Hawaii. Our friends Jen and Jacob met up with us there, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures with them!

 We finished off the evening with martinis and dinner at Cheesecake Factory and a stroll though Waikiki. We won't tell you the part about how we found our car battery dead and had to find some random drunk guy to give us a jump... but it all worked out!

This past weekend we decided to embark on a 9 mile summit hike in Pupukea. We had tried to hike this a couple of times but got rained out. On this nice, dry day we woke up at the butt crack of dawn (7 AM!) and packed a lunch for our adventure. Pupukea is located on the North Shore of Oahu and was recommended by some friends at Kahuku Farms. The hike itself was amazing. We had guessed that it would take us about 3 hours and in reality it took us about 3 hours and 15 minutes, so not too bad. Alex and I love the time that we spend together hiking. Sometimes we just get going on the most random subjects, but we get to learn even more about each other each and every hike.

Sorry for the close up face shot but I only took 4 pictures on this hike!

This was the first summit we hit, looking down at Turtle Bay Resort. My camera died by the time we hit the very top.

We hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I like writing it. I have never really been much into writing but the more you write the easier it gets, right?

P.S We bought a new coffee table from Goodwill that I am planning on re-furnishing at some point...but somebody thinks it is her new bed. :)

xoxoxo-D